Category: Kashmir

Freny Manecksha’s book Behold, I Shine, moves the spotlight from a masculine narrative of the Kashmir conflict to one that focuses on how women and children live in a militarized zone. She says in a recent interview with Kashmir Observer:

My inability to comprehend Kashmiri also made me more aware about things like gestures and how gestures also needed translation. For example, I met a woman whose husband was coaxing her to speak of how she was once sexually violated by security forces. This had happened 11 years ago, so she was struggling to address the issue. She spoke to me about everything else like daily life, abuse and harassment by security personnel’s but just refused to talk about that particular night. Finally, when everyone left the room, just as I too was leaving, she pulled my hand and slipped her pheran off her shoulder. This was how she showed me what had happened to her.